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Life360 reports first annual profit; users up 20%
Location sharing technology company Life360 reported its first annual profit last year as user numbers grew, though its shares dropped. Revenue last quarter was up 26% year-over-year to US$145.89 million, beating Zacks estimates by 1.4%. Earnings per share were $0.32, rising from $0.10 but just below estimates of $0.33. “2025 was a landmark year for Life360. For the first time in company history, we achieved annual net income, reflecting both the fundamental strength of our freemium model and the operating discipline we've built over the past several years," said Life360 CEO Lauren Antonoff. Across the year, total revenue was $489.48 million, up from $371.48 million. Net income was $150.83 million, recovering from 2024’s net loss of $4.56 million. Operating income last quarter was $8.95 million, rising from $5.72 million. Over the year, it swung to income of $18.83 million from a loss of $7.98 million. Adjusted EBITDA rose from $21.25 million to $32.43 million year-over-year in the fourth quarter, and grew 105% to $93.20 million across 2025. The company had 95.8 million monthly active users last quarter, climbing by 20% year-over-year. Monthly active users were up 16% to 50.6 million in the United States, 26% to
Tech
Block to cut almost half its workforce, shares up 23%
Payments technology company Block will lay off almost half its workforce in favour of artificial intelligence tools, sending shares up 23%. Its headcount will be cut from over 10,000 employees to just under 6,000, according to CEO Jack Dorsey. “Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company. We're already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we're building, can do more and do it better,” wrote Dorsey in a letter to shareholders. “We believe Block will be significantly more valuable as a smaller, faster, intelligence-native company. Everything we do from here is in service of that.” U.S. employees who have been laid off will receive their salaries for at least 20 weeks and an additional US$5,000, with employees in other countries given an equivalent based on local requirements. Around 70% of businesses actively use AI, per a study this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research that surveyed executives in the U.S, United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany. Almost 90% reported AI had no impact on labour productivity over the past three years, however. Block’s fourth quarter earnings, also released today, saw the company raise its guidance following strong
Tech
OpenAI halves compute target to US$600bn by 2030
OpenAI has slashed its compute spending target by more than half - from US$1.4 trillion to $600 billion by 2030. Revised guidance ties capital outlay directly to a revenue forecast of more than $280 billion annually by decade's end. Reported by CNBC, citing sources familiar with the matter, the announcement lands as OpenAI closes in on a funding round expected to exceed $100 billion - carrying a pre-money valuation of $730 billion. Revised guidance anchors compute expenditure to a defined revenue trajectory, replacing the $1.4 trillion figure CEO Sam Altman had been circulating since mid-2025, when he outlined plans to develop 30 gigawatts of computing capacity - sufficient to power roughly 25 million U.S. homes. Hitting $280 billion in annual revenue would require OpenAI to more than 20x its 2025 intake of $13.1 billion across five years, with consumer and enterprise each contributing roughly half. 2025 delivered genuine outperformance - internal targets called for $10 billion in revenue and $9 billion in cash burn; actuals came in at $13.1 billion and $8 billion, respectively.$600bn is still an enormous commitmentSix hundred billion dollars in infrastructure outlay over five years dwarfs the capital expenditure progr
Tech
Agentic AI's liability time bomb is already ticking
The agentic AI adoption numbers are hard to argue with - McKinsey clocks software engineering agent deployment at 24%, PwC puts enterprise uptake at 79%, and the market is priced for a run from US$7.8 billion to north of $52 billion by 2030. The production data, though, sits at a significant distance from those headlines. Deloitte found that just 11% of organisations have agentic AI in active production, while Forrester projects that enterprises will defer 25% of planned AI spend into 2027 as ROI fails to materialise. And global tech advisory Gartner predicts that more than 40% of projects will be cancelled by the end of next year. The reason isn't that the tech doesn't work - it's that most vendors aren't selling what they claim. Gartner reckons only around 130 out of thousands of self-described agentic AI companies are building systems that actually qualify, with the rest rebranding chatbots and RPA tools under the "agentic" banner. The firm calls it agent washing, and the investment market hasn't priced a cancellation wave. That's the first problem. The second is more serious.Credit: Drexel LeBow/PreciselyOn 9 December 2026, the rules changeThat's when the EU's new Product Liability Directive takes effect, exp
Tech
Figma's Q4 beat lifts stock; hard questions remain
Design software company Figma delivered a stronger-than-expected fourth quarter, though a 20% after-hours pop on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) has a lot of ground to make up against a punishing post-IPO slide. Revenue came in at US$303.8 million for Q4, up 40% year-on-year and clear of Wall Street's $293.15 million consensus estimate. Figma has surrendered around 80% of its stock value since listing in mid-2025, trading near $23 a share as a sector-wide SaaS correction has flattened most names in the space.Full year and guidanceFull-year 2025 revenue landed at $1.056 billion, up 41% year-on-year, with international revenue outpacing the headline at 45% growth. This year, management guided for revenue of US$1.366 billion to US$1.374 billion - roughly 30% growth at the midpoint and well above the $1.29 billion LSEG consensus. Q1 guidance came in at $315 million to $317 million, pointing to 38% growth continuing into the new year.Margin shrinkAdjusted free cash flow margin deteriorated steadily across the year - from 41% in Q1 to 13% by Q4, with gross margin retreating from roughly 92% to 86% as the cost of running AI inference at scale accumulated. The Q4 cash position was also dented by a one-time US$25 million IP transf

Tech
Adani expands into AI with US$100bn bet
Best known in Australia as the backer of the Carmichael coal mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin, India’s Adani Group has announced plans invest US$100 billion by 2035 to build data centres in India powered by renewable energy and designed to run artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The company intends to create what it described as the world’s largest integrated data centre platform by expanding its current capacity from 2 gigawatts (GW) to 5 GW. Adani told the market that the investment could help generate an additional $150 billion in related spending over the next decade, including in server manufacturing, electrical equipment and so-called sovereign cloud platforms. A sovereign cloud is a cloud computing system that stores and processes data within a country’s borders to meet local laws. The company estimated that the combined effect could create a $250 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure network in India. The announcement comes as India seeks to expand its role in the global AI sector and will build on AdaniConnex, a joint venture between Adani Group and EdgeConnex, which develops and operates data centres. The company expects new facilities to be constructed alongside renewable power plants
Tech
Seek reports loss after Zhaopin investment value sinks
Hiring platform Seek swung to a loss last half after the value of its investment in China-based jobs portal Zhaopin plummeted, but has lifted its guidance amid a large increase in revenue. Sales revenue rose 21% year-over-year to A$647 million, while net revenue was up 12% to $601 million. Its reported loss was $178 million, compared to earnings of $140 million a year ago, though adjusted profit grew 35% to $104 million. “This was another half of demonstrable progress across all our strategic priorities. Our placement share lead in Australia grew to 4.9x our nearest competitor; and whilst Asia declined slightly, underlying marketplace metrics are strong and improving across the board,” said CEO Ian Narev. “New products introduced last year are driving customer choice, and creating tangible value that hirers are willing to pay for. The resulting yield growth led to double digit revenue growth, even as macroeconomic conditions continued to impact volumes.” EBITDA increased 19% to $267 million. Operating expenditures rose 7% to $334 million. The company also announced a record interim dividend of $0.27 per share. Across fiscal 2026, it expects net revenue of $1.19-1.23 billion, with adjusted profit of $195-215 milli
Tech
AI boom turns market darling into market threat
Artificial intelligence (AI) has shifted from market darling to market threat in a matter of weeks, unsettling investors and knocking billions off companies once considered insulated from technological change. For much of the past three years, AI was a euphemism for growth. Fund managers crowded into technology giants and software providers on the promise that automation would lift profits. Now the same logic is being turned on its head: if AI can perform high-value tasks once done by people, someone’s revenue is at risk. The selling began in software. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF, a fund that tracks United States software stocks, has fallen sharply this year, with only a handful of its constituents in positive territory. Valuations, measured by the forward price-to-earnings ratio - a gauge comparing share prices to expected profits - have compressed to levels last seen more than a decade ago. From there, the anxiety spread. Insurance brokers were hit after a Madrid start-up, Tuio, launched a ChatGPT-based insurance app. Investors questioned whether AI tools could bypass traditional intermediaries, the brokers who sit between customers and insurers to arrange cover. Shares in Ma
Tech
SaaSpocalypse continues; software sector down another 3%
Enterprise software stocks have shed roughly US$1 trillion in market capitalisation in a fortnight as the S&P 500 Software Index officially enters a bear market with its relative strength index at 18 - its lowest reading since 1990. The S&P 500 Software & Services Index is off about 20% year to date, while the broader index is up 9% across the same stretch. Adobe's market cap has fallen from $350 billion to $107 billion, erasing its pandemic-era gains, and the WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund is down roughly 20% in 2026.How we got hereThe selloff began on 29 January when SAP's cloud backlog and 2026 revenue outlook fell short of projections, sending the stock down more than 16% and dragging ServiceNow (-11%), Atlassian (-12.6%) and HubSpot (-11.5%) with it. The S&P 500 Software and Services Index slid 8.7% in that single session to a nine-month low, and Microsoft's earnings the following week added pressure with capex ballooning while cloud growth underwhelmed. On 31 January, Anthropic released new plugins for its Claude Cowork productivity tool, bolting on legal, finance and product marketing capabilities under an open-source licence targeting contract review, CRM and analytics - workflows that overlap with enterprise